A common issue that customers can experience when visiting their contest site is a "404: Page not found" error or a "Contest not available at this time" message.
There are multiple reasons why these messages could be displayed:
Default contest not set.
When you setup your contest site a standard sub-domain is setup. This is typically in the format of <name you provide>.us.launchpad6.com. When you create a contest, the name of the contest is added as a folder to the end of the sub-domain. e.g. <name you provide>.us.launchpad6.com/<contest name>. As a contest site can contain multiple contests you need to tell the platform what is the default contest you want to display when a user goes to the root sub-domain (without the contest name entered). This is setup in the global settings area and is called "The Default Page" setting.
You need to set this setting to the contest page you want users to go to when they arrive at your contest domain. If this is not set or it is set to a contest that has been previously deleted a 404 error will be displayed.
No template setup
When you setup a contest a key item that needs to be configured in the website template for the contest. If a contest template is not setup then a "Contest not available at this time" message will be displayed. Make sure you go the the "Template Library" section under Design for your contest, edit a template and then save it. It will then be saved in the "My Saved Templates" area and assigned to the contest.
Contest is offline
If a contest is set to offline mode then it will still be accessible by the administrator however an external user not logged into the system will not be able to access the contest site. To change contest status to published go to the Contest General settings area and set the status to published.
